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Garen is not a well designed champ sure, but you need to understand why he is not allowed to be meta

SUPERMOVA·3/29/2017, 10:21:08 AM·3 votes·1,413 views

Garen's kit is flawwed, i'm sure most can agree with this, Riot openly admitted they leave him in a weaker state compared to the other juggernauts because he offers minor counterplay when he is in the meta. If Riot wanted to make Garen a viable pick in higher elos while also being stable in low elos would mean they have to remove/change the pubstompy aspects of his kit VILLAIN MECHANIC.

As a Garen one trick pony myself, I have seen what Garen's true limits are, he is unable to keep up with the new mobility creep champions with their overloaded kits, his usefullness in teamfights are mediocre at best, but he gets outclassed by heavy cc champions, he is a durable fucker though I will say that, and has decent damage to take down carries IF he manages to reach them.

I feel Garen is not in the worst spot anymore after the buff to his E (judgement) went through, but he is also not in a "balanced" spot. I know theres a few Garen mains on these boards, and I want them all to be aware that yes, Garen doesn't have a greatly desgined kit, and is weaker against the better players you face, but you also have to understand why Riot leave him in this weak spot, its because of the villain mechanic, and until Riot finally change this in his kit he will have to stay vitually the same. That being said, if you want to play Garen in order to climb out of your elo, it is definately possible to climb with, up to a certain extent.

23 Comments

chipndip13/29/2017, 11:50:15 AM2 votes

Villain mechanic isn't why Garen is weak. The fact that Garen can't miss anything he does is why Garen is weak.

Eternal Torment3/29/2017, 11:02:29 AM1 votes

i dont Play garen a lot but yeah i have to agree. he is in this awkward position where he is not a contestent pick, yet at the same time he is somewhat viable depending on a specific enemy composition. I personally see garen Players often when the toplaner on our team is either a heavily Skill based one like maybe a jayce, a renekton or someone who Needs to be shut down early like Nasus. Garen is in my personal opinion somewhat okay, not balanced, not op, not up, hes Kind of in this middle inbetween everything. you can Play with him if you want and he certainly is a free ticket in the low elo regions but he is an arguable pick. His villain mechanic serves him the purpose to shut down enemies on a killing spree, you basically mark as a villain the guy who got the most kills or the guy who made the latest kill if there are no sprees recorded and that gives this Kind of vibe that you really only wanna Play him when you want to focus on the shut downs, which is a double edged sword because you cant shut down someone who isnt fed but still carries the team, per say a support, a full tank top.

In my opinion garen is just barely above this line that separates "okay" from "Needs a buff"

Poske3/29/2017, 11:05:07 AM1 votes

No it has nothing to do with that. Villan mechanic Just No

In order for Garen to be Viable he needs to have extremly high dmg

**Riot wants Garen to be extremly noob friendly champ which he is **

they would have to do some insanely massive buffs if they want to see garen picked at high elo To the point where Garen would be balanced in high elo while having 60% winrate in low elo

So yeah blame it on comunity and riot for not DOING ANYTHING correct with his rework

Dominick Destine3/29/2017, 1:39:58 PM1 votes

I agree, rework Ganre.

Makior723/29/2017, 4:08:58 PM1 votes

Garen main here, granted I'm only gold 5 (gold2 at end of last season) but honestly I think Garen is in a fine spot, the thing I see most preventing him from being meta is

Lack of hard CC compared to meta tank tops
Lack of damage compared to carry tops.

The first is honestly not a problem imo as Garens silence is used correctly is already debilitating enough to the enemy.

With the second however, I feel that when I see other people play Garen they just build him... wrong....

When I see other people play Garen I usually see ONE damage item built (black cleaver) and then full tank from that point on. The games where I've had the most success as Garen I build 2-3 damage items, it makes his team fight a lot more meaningful. Otherwise you're just a tank people can mostly ignore.

The issue of him not being able to catch people I find can also be solved with runes and build changes. I almost never see deadman plate built on Garen, or ghost blade, or movement quints , but these are all things that would help a lot in catching those hard to catch characters.

Are you gonna catch that ahri? Prolly not, nor talon, nor udyr, nor quinn. Or yi, but the vast majority of adcs and mids you can catch, or just path better through the jungle to catch people off guard.

Critmaster Garen3/29/2017, 5:54:30 PM1 votes

if he wasnt allowed to be meta, riot wouldnt have buffed him with the armor shred to make him viable.

the problem is that the constant environmental changes keep his strength declining despite the buffs. the armor shred offset that decline for a while, but its still going down.

i really hope the tank update and the item and mastery changes that come with it will positively affect juggernauts aswell, since theyre building a lot of the same items as tanks.